If you suffer from sciatica pain, check out this quick and simple tip.
For most people, turning the legs “IN” will help an aggravated sciatic nerve.
Sciatica is a very common problem where sharp pain appears in the buttock, outer hip, outer or back thigh, outer shin, and frequently goes all the way to the foot.
People with sciatica may have pain throughout that entire area, from the buttock all the way to the foot, or the pain may appear in just one or a couple of those places.
This pain always means that the sciatic nerve is impinged or compromised in some way. This nerve exits the spinal column way down at the bottom, next to the sacrum, which is right around the middle to inner buttock.
In general, the sciatic nerve gets aggravated in one of two places, the lumbar spine (lower lower back), or the hip muscles commonly felt to be the buttocks area. The issue is almost always compression of some sort, meaning the nerve is getting pressed on.
Before explaining a bit more about why this tip works, let’s get to the goods for those of you who may be suffering from the problem right now. You can literally try this right away, and in many cases people will instantly feel at least some lessening of the pain.
What you want to do is roll your thighs IN, while practicing the modified downward facing dog (dog pose with your hands on the counter). Hopefully you already know this excellent yoga pose, if not you can get 7 free videos teaching nothing but various important aspects of this pose, by clicking here.
If you were to stand up straight and roll your legs apart, so the knees turned away from each other, that is called rolling the thighs “OUT”. When you roll the thighs such that the knees turn towards each other, that’s called rolling the thighs “IN”.
Rolling the thighs IN is what you want, because in many, many cases it can bring space to both the lower, lower back and the muscles of the hip area, which in turn may relieve whatever pinching is happening to the sciatic nerve.
* Do the Modified Downward Facing Dog Pose. Usually the distance between the feet is the same as the distance between the hips, but in this case take the feet a little wider apart.
* Turn your feet in, as far as they can go. Generally this does not bother the knees, but if you have a knee problem and you feel strain on the knee, only turn the feet as much as you comfortably can with the knee. Everyone else, turn the feet in AS FAR as you possibly can. This is “pigeon toed”.
* Now do the pose, like always, but as you keep the thighs firm and extend the body back, pressing the knees back, see if you can roll your thighs any amount more in that same direction, “IN”, so the knees point more and more toward each other.
* Walk forward to the counter or wall and come up and out of the pose
If you felt the pain increase, then don’t do it again, this is not for you. However if you felt NO change or if it helped at all, then repeat this two more times right now, for about 30 – 60 seconds each.
See how it feels.
This simple experiment is enough to tell you if this is something that might be able to help. It’s totally obvious that if you feel any amount better, it is clearly helping, and you know should get motivated to do this pose a lot, like 10 or 20 times during the day.
If you don’t notice any change, but you’re sure the pain did not get worse, then I’d encourage you to stick with it for a while. Why? Because this tip, when done correctly, helps such a high percentage of people I’ve worked with that it’s worth giving it another day or two, as an experiment.
If the impingement on the sciatic nerve is coming from an issue that’s been around for a long time, then of course the pain isn’t going to disappear right away, it might need some disciplined work.
If this helps, then do it a lot, the more the better.
Even if you typically do Downward Facing Dog with your hands on the floor, if sciatica is your problem you should do the pose as I’ve shown, with the hands on a counter or wall at hip-height (or there about, not a big deal exactly how high the hands are). This keeps the angle at the hips free and open, allowing you to maximize the effect.
If you’re curious about why this might work, all you have to do is a simple experiment.
Stand straight. Turn your feet in as far as you can, and perceive what happens to the buttocks. Then do the opposite, turn the feet out (but don’t do this if you actually have sciatic pain because this movement may aggravate it). Again, notice the buttocks.
Go back and forth a few times, and see if you can clearly feel what happens to the muscles and general space of the buttocks. When you turn your feet in, the buttocks get stretched, which makes them spread away from the center (sacrum) out towards the hips. When you turn the feet away from each other the opposite happens, the buttocks move from the hips in towards the center (sacrum).
So when we turn the feet in that makes space in the buttocks because it broadens the muscles, and when we turn the feet out that compresses that area. Repeat the simple experiment until you can feel that, as it will help you achieve the best result when you do the yoga pose.
It’s relatively easy to feel how rotating the thighs affects the back of the buttocks area. But believe it or not, the same thing is happening to the lower, lower back when you do this action correctly. Space comes to the vertebral column because the muscles spread from the center to the sides, though it’s takes a bit more practice to be able to directly feel that like you can the buttocks.
There are other specific yoga poses given for sciatica, namely baddha konasana, utthita parsvakonasana, upavistha konasana, uttanasana and most forward bends, and of special import is supta padangusthasana. So learn these correctly if you try this modified dog pose and find it helps, but doesn’t fix the problem.
Hopefully you’ll fall into the category of many, who actually can get complete relief from sciatica pain from this one pose only (repeated many times).
Good luck, and check out this great testimonial I once got from a client who came in disabled from sciatica pain:
“After trying acupuncture and chiropractic, and still continuing to have agonizing pain from sciatica for several months, I finally contacted Christian. Yoga completely eliminated my pain and has allowed me to perform activities that have not been possible for years.”
-Mike K., DVM